News roundup: Angry words and an aircraft carrier from Beijing over Taiwan

TODAY’S TOP STORIES

Fiery rhetoric from Beijing on Taiwan

Chinese state media today prominently featured reports of a speech by the spokesman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office at a “routine” press conference in which he blasted supporters of independence for Taiwan and Hong Kong. He quoted from a Mao Zedong poem and compared independence activists to flies who bash themselves against a wall and fall to the ground bloodied and with broken heads. Another warning to Taiwanese independence activists came from the People’s Liberation Army Navy, which this week sailed its sole aircraft carrier just south of Taiwan.

The South China Morning Postnotes that “Beijing is facing a host of threats to its status quo as the ­independence-leaning leadership of Taiwan grows more vocal, protesters in Hong Kong call for complete separation from the mainland, and an incoming ­Donald Trump presidency in the U.S. threatens to take a more hardline stance in its ties with the world’s second-largest economy.” Reuters has an article that explains the reference to the Mao poem in the Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman’s speech. The Chinese language report on the speech is here.

WEI WATCH

A regular feature about what’s buzzing on Chinese social media

China’s low-quality films: Is it the movies or the critics who are responsible?

The People’s Daily published an article (in Chinese) that said that “ill-intended and irresponsible comments” from well-known movie critics seriously damage the Chinese film industry. Chinese social media reacted with anger as many commenters said that the poor quality of the movies was the real problem. The story is a trending topic on Weibo today, collected under the hashtag meaning “Negative criticism harms film industry” (in Chinese).

More stories worth your time are summarized below, with the more important stories at the top of each section.

China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ takes to space / WSJ
“Countries along Beijing’s flagship Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-century Maritime Silk Road will be among the first in line to plug into China’s new satellite-navigation services.”

U.S. anti-propaganda law ‘may set stage for war of ideas with China’ / SCMP
“China is mentioned just once in the 1,623-word Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act, but observers said it could become a tool to counter Beijing,” write Wei Qi and Violet Law. “The legislation was signed as part of the National Defense ­Authorization Act of 2017 shortly before Christmas.”

In Hong Kong’s book industry, ‘everybody is scared’ / The Guardian
A little over a year after five Hong Kong-based booksellers were seized by Chinese security forces, “the whole industry is wondering if hard-hitting books on Chinese politics still have a future in the former British colony,” writes Ilaria Maria Sala.

SOCIETY AND CULTURE:

To speak is to blunder / The New Yorker
“Over the years, my brain has banished Chinese,” writes novelist Yiyun Li. “To be orphaned from my native language felt, and still feels, like a crucial decision.”

Chinese prosecutors charge thousands of school bullies / SCMP
China has a legal age of criminal responsibility of 16, but it can be lowered to 14 in severe cases, such as the instance this year in which a 15-year-old was “handed a three-year custodial sentence for robbing his schoolmates.”

As China’s young head to cities, elders find new appeal in old age homes / Christian Science Monitor
“Chinese families have typically shunned dedicated nursing homes for fear of losing face,” writes Michael Holtz. “But now they are giving such facilities a second look, as elderly and their families alike find tradition challenged by the demands of modernizing Chinese life.”

Listen

‘Critical’ journalism in China, explained by Maria Repnikova

Outside observers typically view China’s media as utterly shackled by the bonds of censorship, unable to critique the government or speak truth to power in any meaningful sense. In part, this is true — censorship and other pressures do create “no-go” zones for journalists in China, as well as gray zones that sometimes rapidly turn […]

Michael Yamashita’s Photo of the Day

Rabbits in colorful cages for sale at a temple fair near Lianhuachi Park in Beijing in 2010 during the Spring Festival celebration. At these fairs, which are popular during this time of year, vendors sell food and sometimes pets.